


Eating cotton candy in the dark

by deathorthetoypiano



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 07:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathorthetoypiano/pseuds/deathorthetoypiano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York. June 1953. Midnight. Helen comes to see Nikola in a diner, because her contacts said the fries are good, and that she could find him there if she wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eating cotton candy in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> The title, and the idea, of this piece come from ‘Nikola Tesla’, a song written and recorded for the 8in8 project (which you can read about at http://www.eightineight.com/). I always get the song in my head after watching a Nikola episode. And this is what came of it.

New York, June 1953.

Midnight. 

Staff cleaning the last of the plates and glasses, sweeping up stray fries and wiping away milkshake splashes from the floor. Occasionally, one of them says something, but mostly they just get on with it, and try to ignore the guy in the corner. The guy who comes in every night, just before they close, and sits with his food - perhaps a burger, or pancakes, or on one strange occasion, cotton candy - in the darkest corner, while everyone else leaves, and they clear up around him. They know he's watching them, but he doesn't bother them, he always tips well, and, with an almost alarming regularity, he leaves at ten past midnight, when they all get to go home. It has been a few months, perhaps a year, every single night. He has never threatened them, or even given them a particular reason to be afraid.

But they are still nervous of him.

Tonight is different. The door swings open - someone must have forgotten to lock it after everyone else left - and a woman comes in, ignoring the 'CLOSED' sign on the door, and doesn't give the staff a second glance. The staff pretend to ignore her in return but, really, they're all watching. She's good-looking, tall, with masses of dark hair, dressed all in black, and what appears to be a gun inside her jacket. Without hesitating, she approaches the guy in the corner, and he doesn't seem surprised. She sits down at his table, and he smirks at her.

"Nikola." Only the waiter closest hears her, and her British accent surprises him. Something about her tone makes him as nervous of her as he is of the guy, perhaps even more so. He doesn't want her to have a problem with him. He doesn't want to know if it really is a gun, or just looks like it. Either way, she could kick his ass. He slinks away with his cleaning cloth as she sits down opposite the creepy guy, and takes a fry, then another. "I was told I'd find you here."

He smirks. "I've been waiting for you, Helen."

"Are you really that bored?" she asks, a note of bitterness tainting the lightness of her voice, but she avoids eye contact, leaning forward to reach his fries again.

He rolls his eyes and pushes the plate closer to her. "Nothing's as good when you're not around," he replies. She scoffs, rolling her eyes, suspicious. "No, really. Nobody even attempts to stop me taking over the world. It's quite dull." She smiles, just a little, and he grins, looking like the cat that got the cream. The vampire that got the... Helen shivers, putting that thought out of her mind. She's out of the habit. "Though I admit, I haven't just been waiting for you. I've been waiting for something to happen. But more to the point, why were you looking for me, anyway?"

She settles back in her chair. "Oh, no reason really, just fancied catching up. Plus my contacts told me that the fries here are really very good." He raises an eyebrow disbelievingly, and she huffs, gritting her jaw and tossing her head irritably. "Oh alright. I wanted your help with something." If they had been somewhere less quiet, he would have crowed. As it is, he looks so impossibly smug that she wants to kick him. She narrows her eyes. Some things never change. "It's of mutual benefit," she tells him pointedly, hoping for an answer, but he says nothing, merely raising an eyebrow. The man is infuriating. "Oh for goodness' sake, Nikola, if that's how you're going to be, Nikola, I'm not staying." She hesitates only a moment before she stands and leaves, letting the door close heavily behind her. She sees, out of the corner of her eye, the diner staff looking at each other, wondering what's going on but not daring to say anything, not daring to look like they want Nikola to leave. She wonders how long Nikola has been bothering them, and momentarily considers suggesting he find a new spot, somewhere busier so that he scares people less, until she remembers that there are far worse people in the world than Nikola, and a little passive fear on a late shift never hurt anyone. She sidesteps into an alley a little way along from the diner, and leans against the wall, waiting. He will come, because he is curious, because it is her, because he always does. It takes longer than she expects, and she wonders what he is doing. She starts to fidget nervously. Perhaps things have changed more than she has accounted for. Perhaps her timing is wrong. Perhaps her memory is serving her incorrectly. It has, after all, been an awfully long time.

"Helen." His sudden appearance, just as she was starting to think he would not be coming, startles her. He raises his hand gently to her cheek, stroking her hair away. "You get more beautiful with every year, I'm certain of it."

She pulls away, backing up against the wall, turning her head. "Don't."

He has clearly struck a nerve. "Why not?" he asks, stepping back a little, trying to give her the space she clearly needs, but loathe to be too far away in case she runs. He has missed her, after all, and he doesn't want to ruin anything. But he looks away and doesn't press her to answer him. He just watches her, watching a symphony of emotions cross her face in a way that make him want to hold her. It makes his palms itch, wanting to help but knowing she won't let him. "When did you stop trusting me?" he asks, so softly he wonders if he said it out loud at all. But the change in her expression confirms that he did.

"Oh please, Nikola, don't." She's pressed so hard against the wall that she is in danger of melting into it. He steps right back, to arm's length, opening up the space for her to turn, if she has to. It's been long enough that, now, he can't be sure that she won't. Things have changed. She is so different from who she used to be, stronger than she was before, more independent, less afraid, than the woman he knew in Oxford. He wonders what terrible things have blighted her. How much of her changed demeanour is down to him. And this fear, this hopelessness he sees in her now is so awful. The change is so drastic from the last time he saw her, that he has no choice but to hear her out. But it doesn't stop him from being curious. "I don't trust anybody any more," she tells him finally, her voice low, cracking a little.

"You used to." Nikola frowns, trying to make sense of it. She used to be so trusting that it was downright dangerous, and although the last time he saw her, she was less so, she was still nothing like this. This is a damaged person, and it worries him. "You used to be trusting to a fault. What's changed?"

"I'm completely alone," she replies, so hopelessly that he expects her to explain. She doesn’t. He frowns, wanting desperately to take her in his arms and hold her, even if for nothing but to make her feel a little more safe, a little less alone. But he does nothing, waiting for her to make a move, respecting the wall she has put up, no matter that all he wants is to tear it down again. "I mean, John's god knows where, and you're technically dead, and Will isn't even born-" She cuts herself off, biting her lip nervously as she watches him try to make sense of what she has just said.

"Who's Will?" he asks eventually, admitting defeat.

"I can't tell you," she tells him, so apologetic that it wounds him. He doesn't want to cause her this much pain, but he wonders whether she has found him because she wants to share whatever she is hiding, whether he is the closest thing - even with all that has passed between them, all the times he has betrayed her and all the terrible things he has done - that she has to a friend right now. 

"Alright. But why are you talking in the future tense?” He pauses, stares out into the street as he mulls it over. “If I guess, will you let me know that I'm right?" he muses, looking back at her. She shakes her head, closing her eyes to hide the ghost of a smile, but he grins wolfishly, relishing the challenge, and hoping to cheer her up a little. "Well. If you can't tell me, that means it will affect something...” Another pause, as a group of people pass by the mouth of the alleyway. He recognises them as the staff from the diner. “I’m guessing that you're a future version of yourself?" He pauses, observes her, and takes her stony expression to mean that he is right, watches as she grits her teeth, then tries to relax to make her reaction less obvious. "But you have to avoid the other you. And you can't tell anybody." He raises a hand and smiles again. "But of course you can come to me, because you don't have to tell me because, hello, genius,” he grins, does a tiny bow, thrills silently at the little laugh it earns from her, then pauses, thinking the rest of it through. Certainly this explains the mixed messages he’s been getting from her. How long has it been? Certainly in the past two decades, the way he has become accustomed to her attitude turning on a dime, changing every time they meet. He’d put it down to the years between their meetings, but perhaps it was because she was actually two different versions of herself. He wonders how long it’s been going on. He wonders when she will tell him. But now, back to the problem at hand. “Now, that just leaves this Will. Who is he?"

But this changes something. Helen shakes her head, holding up a hand. She hardens a little, and he watches her defences spring up again, a cloud passing over her face. Someone important, then, but Nikola knows before she opens her mouth that she is not going to tell him that. "You'll know, in time. But that’s too big a risk. I’m not even going to let you guess." But she smiles, then, softens again, now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, and holds out a hand to him. He realises what she means by it - an invitation, permission, whatever - and takes it, trapping it against his chest and bringing himself flush against her. "I've missed you," she whispers into his neck, her breath cool against his skin. "It's been such a long time." He opens his mouth to say that it's only been a couple of years, but then he realises that, in fact, he has no idea how many years it has been for her. From the way her fingers are curling possessively around his lapels, he deduces that it has been somewhat longer since this Helen saw him. He kisses her hair, and she whimpers, nuzzling into him. "Nikola, if you see me - the other me - you can't-"

“Of course I won't," he assures her, curling a knuckle against her neck, running it along her neck. He realises, doing so, that his promise will be a difficult one to keep, since he cut her off before she asked him. But it is easy enough to work out that the other Helen - he should think of her as the real Helen, he supposes, but that Helen is not here, in his arms, needing him - must not know of this, he must react as though these are two separate women - which they are, Nikola had noticed that much tonight - and not let on. He stops thinking about it and looks into her eyes - this Helen, now - and kisses her, kisses her like he has wanted to for so long, like she clearly needs to now. She sighs into him and it is clear from the way she kisses him back that she knows him, that this is not new to her like it is to him. The thought gives him hope, and he wonders how long he will have to wait. How much he will have to endure. How damaged he will have to see her before she finally allows him to comfort her. He hopes, feverishly, that it won’t be as bad as he fears.

He casts the thought from his mind. For now, he has her, she has come to him, damaged and lonely as she is, she is trusting him, needing him. He has her, right here, and he kisses her like he believes it will always be like this.


End file.
